Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/303900
www.beveragedynamics.com May/June 2014 • Beverage Dynamics 13 [ RETAIL PROFILE ] Adding a new 20,000-square-foot-store to its existing chain of a dozen stores in the Minneapolis-St-Paul area, the hugely successful Haskell's has created a beverage alcohol emporium with plenty of bells and whistles. I t takes something special to top the success of the Haskell's chain of wine, beer and spirit stores operating in the Minneap- olis-St-Paul area, but owner and retailing legend John F. (Jack) Farrell, Jr., chairman and ceo of Haskell's Inc., thinks that with this new store, he has found the formula for the company's future. At 20,000 square feet, more than double the size of any other Haskell's unit now operating, the Maple Grove location is the largest in the state, mammoth indeed with more than $2.5 mil- lion in inventory under one roof, about 9,000 in wine skus, two to three thousand skus each in beer and spirits, and a separate accessories department. "The reaction of people coming in here is the most amazing thing. They are just swept away by the scope and size of the place and the wonderful ambiance," says Farrell. "It creates a desire among customers, I think, to load up those shopping carts — yesterday a woman bought four bottles of whiskey for $170; our unit sales have always been very, very high, but so far, they are even higher in this store. I used to think the optimum store was 10,000 square feet,100 by 100, but this sort of space provides a whole new feeling to things." SURPASSING EXPECTATIONS Only opened a few days before Christmas 2013, the store has already set the bar very high, surpassing early expectations — Haskell says previous stores built business slowly over time. With broad lines of sight, lots of illumination, spacious aisles and well-organized sections, the new Haskell's addressed both the concerns of loyal customers as well as the challenge of impend- ing competition from big box retailers like Total Wine and More. (It doesn't hurt that one of the busiest Target stores in the state is right next door, either.) All that has brought a new style of shopping to the Haskell's experience. Oddly enough, this isn't what Jack Farrell had in mind when fi rst conceiving of this store, the fi rst new Haskell's since 2011. "Originally I set out to make this location like a warehouse store, with palates stacking atop palates and massive displays. But as I got into it I thought, "No, I don't want it to look like a warehouse store. I do want palates and stacks, but I don't want anything more than six feet high and I want customers to be able to see all over the store.'" Rather than the colder feel of a warehouse store, the look is more elegant without detracting from the massive selection and impressive displays of wares. He brought in the custom-made wine racks used in all Haskell units and tweaked them to be movable, giving management fl exibility in store design — the en- tire facility can be reconfi gured in the space of four hours, and by mid-March, the lay-out had been altered a few times already. 15,000 BOTTLES LINING ONE WALL One entire wall of the store holds more than 15,000 bottles, with three wooden library ladders used to stock and gather bottles of wine. "That's very impressive," says Farrell. "It looks almost like a scholarly setting, if you will; that's part of the thing you want peo- ple to see, to impress them. "To be a wine merchant today, you have to have a fairly large inventory with lots of skus and really be on top of your game," he says. "There's nothing like stacking 100 cases of Captain Morgan on the sales fl oor to catch a customer's eye — people look at it and fi gure they must be well priced. These are things places like Target have been doing for years, and it just took a while for the beverage alcohol business to catch up." Creating a larger store of some kind had been a goal for Has- kell's since around 2007 when, after opening a 9,500 square foot store, customers still remarked that the store was hard to shop, given the massive selection Haskell's has long been known for. "Making a store comfortable makes people stay longer and shop more, it creates a comfortable and safe environment that everyone, especially women, like," says Farrell. With the outside of the building brightly lit as well, there is an attractive and invit- ing appeal to the store for even uninterested passers-by, he says. "It's allowed us to do far bigger and greater displays and BY JACK ROBERTIELLO ANOTHER OPENING, A BIGGER SHOW